By JEREMIAH KIPLANG'AT

By JOHN NGIRACHU

In Summary

Cord MPs organised effectively to deal their Jubilee colleagues a crushing and surprising defeat in both the vote by acclamation and the second one by the physical vote.

Many who spoke about the omnibus Bill at the Second Reading, which was spread over several days, had expressed opposition to the proposed law.

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The government suffered a major setback after Cord MPs rallied to reject a Bill that sought to regulate funding for non-governmental organisations.

The Bill also sought to change 48 other laws that many considered unconstitutional.

The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2013 was shot down by MPs Wednesday evening when MPs were asked to vote for its Second Reading.

So large is the Bill that it had been split into two volumes.

The large one was rejected Wednesday and the second smaller one has seven laws that affect counties, meaning it has to be debated by the Senate as well.

Cord MPs organised effectively to deal their Jubilee colleagues a crushing and surprising defeat in both the vote by acclamation and the second one by the physical vote.

Speaker Justin Muturi ordered the physical vote after Jubilee, surprised that Cord had outshouted them, got members to ask for the second round of voting.

Cord won 83-73, with eight MPs abstaining.

Many who spoke about the omnibus Bill at the Second Reading, which was spread over several days, had expressed opposition to the proposed law.

They pointed out that a number of amendments were unconstitutional.

On Wednesday morning, at the last stage of the Second Reading, the lawmakers from both political divides challenged it saying it contained many provisions that violated the supreme law.

SPY AGENCY

Among the proposed changes that were affected was a proposal to allow the National Intelligence Service to interfere with anybody’s communications if that person is under investigations or is suspected to have committed an offence.

The spy agency would have been given the power to do that without getting a warrant from the courts.

The NIS would have had the power to investigate, monitor or otherwise interfere with a person’s communication if someone is under investigation by the service.

The current law allows them to do that only if the courts issue a warrant after a request is made and a judge finds that that is necessary.

The NIS would have had their mandate expanded to cover people “subject to the investigation by the service.”

The provision to have a warrant issued by a judge before that is allowed would also have been dropped.